Telling Effect

Gaetano Donizetti's'La Favorite' -
impressesGERALD FENECH

'... lovingly produced and passionately executed ...'

La Favorite was premiered in Paris on 2 December 1840, and until 1918 this Donizettimasterpiece was indeed a true favourite with Paris audiences. Then suddenly, after almost seven-hundred performances in the Frenchcapital, the opera was consigned to near total oblivion. It is only a recent reappraisal of the work, spearheaded by a growth in scholarly interest in both Donizetti's remarkable output and the complexpolitical manoeuvres of the nineteenth century, that have helped bring the work back into the limelight.